How to Go On
by noavail
Summary: A series of short conversations after Adam's mother's death. No Girardi action, but I reserve the right to drag God into it in a later chapter. Work in progress.
1. Last week's sculpture

TITLE: How to Go On  
  
TIMELINE: Years before the start of this series, starting a week after Adam's mother commits suicide.  
  
1.  
  
Grace's stomach churned as she approached the doorway to the Rove house. It was a smaller, shabbier place than her own, but she didn't notice the physical differences. The contrast that mattered wasn't something you could see, exactly, though there were some small clues. The mail stacked up, unread, in the mailbox. The blinds were still drawn in the visible windows. Walking up to the doorway, Grace almost tripped over a tin full of muffins, wrapped in a tea towel and left there by an anonymous neighbor. They must not have even rung the bell, she realized. The thing that was different explained it all--the mail, the blinds, the leaving of the muffins five feet from the door, even the acid taste in Grace's throat as she picked up the bundle and made herself knock. Someone had died in this house.  
  
Adam cracked the door open and offered Grace a hesitant smile. He looked shorter, somehow, than she remembered, even though she stood a step below the threshold and he was looking down at her.  
  
"I didn't make these." Grace said, offering him the bundle of muffins.  
  
" I think the church ladies are doing it. It's usually casseroles."  
  
"That's kind of nice."  
  
"Yeah. Yeah, it is." From the threshold of the house, Grace saw Adam's father leaning on the kitchen counter, flipping idly through a newspaper. He registered her presence at the doorway but made no move to acknowledge her, and Grace felt almost relieved. She turned away as Adam set the muffins down beside the counter stove and the two men exchanged quiet, perfunctory goodbyes.  
  
In front of the house, Adam adjusted the hood of his sweatshirt and shifted his bag from one arm to the other. Grace watched: his eyes caught hers, then dropped. He stood there, waiting as if for instructions, until she started walking. When the silence went beyond what she could handle, Grace made herself speak up, trying to keep her voice neutral and light.  
  
'So...how are you?"  
  
Adam paused in front of the question, considering his options before giving up. 'Um. You know.'  
  
Grace smiled then, rueful and warm. "Yeah. Dumb question. Look, how do you want to do this?'  
  
"Do what?"  
  
"This whole thing. This talking thing. Do you want to talk about it, or do you. . .maybe want me to talk like nothing's happened? Cuz. . . I kind of don't know how to do this.'  
  
A trace of a smile passed over his face. 'Yeah, well, neither do I. "  
  
Grace glanced at her friend, at the way his neck bent below the hooded sweatshirt and the slowness in his steps. She hadn't thought of an answer for herself, but she knew, suddenly, that he needed one. How to do this. How to go on.  
  
"Well, I guess we just. . . get through homeroom, you know? And then, you've got math, and English, and---then is it p.e., or do you have p.e. after lunch?'  
  
'After lunch I have art third period.'  
  
"Good. Art. You like that. You're, um, good at that. I. . ." she wasn't sure if this was the time for it, but she didn't feel like she'd be able to bring it up again. She looked over at him and noticed the flush on his cheeks, realized that he was thinking about it too.  
  
"The sculpture you made. You left it on my porch, um, last week, before. . . Anyway I got it. Um, it's beautiful.'  
  
He blushed again, and couldn't meet her eyes. His voice, when he spoke, was thick with confusion and pain. 'Grace. . . I think.. . .it's different now.'  
  
She nodded. "Right."  
  
'I mean, you're not. Different. It's not you. It's just. . .God, it's just...'  
  
Grace smiled. 'Horrible timing?"  
  
'Yeah. Um. . .Grace, are things gonna be weird now?"  
  
'They don't have to be. At least, not weirder than, um, they already are.' She forced his gaze, then, gently but firmly, and smiled again to back her words up. Their eyes met and held for a beat beyond a second, and Adam nodded. They walked the rest of the way to school together in a silence that had lost only some of its edge. 


	2. Broken glass

Author's note: Second in a series of conversations. The lack of continuity between chapters is intentional: each chapter is a new conversation, with several days passing between each one.  
  
*********  
  
"Um, Dad?"  
  
Carl Rove looked up from a pile of his late wife's clothing to see his son standing, hesitantly, at the edge of the doorway. He blushed and arranged his face into what he hoped might pass for a reassuring smile.  
  
"Yes, Adam?"  
  
"We're out of casseroles."  
  
"Shit." Carl realized, as he heard himself cursing in the presence of his child, that his filter today was dangerously low . Now that the shock had somewhat subsided, he found himself less able to pretend. Adam smiled, and his father relaxed a bit--maybe he wasn't messing up completely. Maybe he wouldn't need to pretend all the time.  
  
"Well, we can go always go out to eat."  
  
His son refused this with disproportionate force. "NO! I'm not going out!" Adam had already spent exactly 9 days attending school since his motherr's suicide, nine days of entering a room and feeling the eyes move. Nine days of learning, exactly, how quiet a room gets when everyone in there is thinking about him. His plan was to exist outside his house as little as possible until the whole thing somehow blew off. It wasn't a good plan, but he didn't have another one.  
  
Carl's voice snapped Adam back into the moment. "We have to eat."  
  
Adam shrugged. "Let's cook something." He moved back towards the kitchen, and Carl followed, taking his son's lead as the boy opened the refrigerator and began shifting things around. The milk was almost empty, the lettuce soft and brown around the edges. Adam opened a container and both of them gagged. Carl reached out his hand and Adam slammed the container into it; the older man turned and walked toward the garbage, briefly picturing himself scraping the contents into the trash. He was throwing the whole damn thing away, Tupperware and all, when a noise across the room made him turn around.  
  
The larger magnets rattled as Adam slammed the door and pushed his fist against it, sending coupons and family photos sliding down against its surface. A vase perched on the drop of the refrigerator jiggled and fell, shattering against the linoleum floor. "Shit!" he spat out, surveying the damage. Carl saw the angry flash in Adam's eyes and moved through the tension as though he were walking through water in a pool.  
  
Arriving at Adam's side, he dropped to his knees and placed a tentative hand on the shoulder of his child. "Leave it, son. It's okay."  
  
Adam shook his head, tears slipping down his reddened cheeks. "No. No it isn't."  
  
"No. It isn't. But I'll pick these things up."  
  
Adam stood and walked away, leaving his father in the wrecked and dirty kitchen. Sifting the pictures away from the glass, Carl shuddered with despair at the idea that this, exactly this, could become his whole life now--alone in a kitchen, picking up the pieces, watching his son move further away. His head was down when Adam came in again.  
  
"Dad?"  
  
Carl looked up at the broom in his son's hand as Adam stood before him, his eyes deep with concern. Seconds passed in silence, as he looked from his son to the broom and then back again. Adam tilted the broom towards him, and Carl nodded, taking the handle with a tired but genuine smile.  
  
"I can't find the dustpan."  
  
"We can use newspaper instead."  
  
"I'll get some."  
  
They finished the cleaning without talking any more. Adam replaced the broom and shuffled back towards his father: they stared at each other awkwardly before Carl reached out his arms. Wordlessly, Adam fell into them, clutching his father and pressing his face against the man's thick shoulder. It was different from his mother, the smell of salt and lavender he remembered from the last time they embraced. His father wasn't soft like she had been--his father couldn't hold him the way she had done. His father felt stronger, but not quite as certain, like a new arrival on land that his mother had known well. Still, Adam almost shivered with relief to feel another person's arms around him again, and he knew, on some level, that his father felt it, too. This is how it was now. It had to be okay.  
  
"We'll have pizza." Carl muttered, as the two released their grips. He knew there was something else, but he didn't have the words.  
  
"All right."  
  
"All right." 


End file.
